[BillyMac]

It appears that I will have my article "Preliminary Signals – What Happens Next?" published in the next issue of IAABO Sportorials magazine.

Today, I decided to review the past six articles that I've had published in Sportorials to see it they withstood the test of time, and I made some changes to reflect some new rule and mechanics.

In one article, "Time-Outs: When The Ball Is Dead, We Must Be Alive", I had written the following:

During this procedure it's important that the granting official not “bump” the timeout reporting procedure over to the nongranting official, even if the nongranting official is closer to the table.

While this has been true in NFHS and/or IAABO mechanics for over forty years, IAABO made an unannounced mechanics change last year:

The ruling official may communicate timeout information to official nearest to the scorer’s table to report to the official scorer.

So, it appears that we can now "bump" timeouts.

I only became aware of this change at the very end of last season when I worked with a rookie official who was having difficulties with timeout administration mechanics.

I went over detailed timeout administration mechanics with her and then decided to check what I had covered with her by reading my IAABO mechanics manual when I got home, only to discover that "bumping" is now allowed, so I emailed my discovery to her.

My state and local IAABO boards do a poor job of announcing minor changes in the mechanics manual.

Were any other IAABO members made aware of this change?

What is the proper procedure in NFHS mechanics?